The Iraqi Parliament has narrowly approved a status of forces agreement that does what Dubya swore he would never do, namely set a fixed timeline for the withdrawal of US forces. Although it is still not yet a done deal, and may even face a plebiscite, my intial thoughts are A) about damn time; and B) once again, Obama’s luck holds. If the SOFA stands, the Iraqis will have provided the perfect political cover for withdrawing our forces. After all, if they don’t want us there anymore, how could we stay? And at the same time, it undercuts the inevitable (and already unfolding) Republican stab-in-the-back, who-lost-Iraq meme.

I agree. Of course, the irony is that if his luck does hold and we are able to withdraw peacefully, AND Iraq is able to continue functioning as a sovereign, democratic state, posterity may view Bush’s presidency in a much more positive light than it is now. Lots of ifs there and I’m not holding my breath, but it’s definitely possible. At this point I don’t care who gets the credit; with so much blood and treasure expended in that mess, we all need to pray for a successful outcome.

One of the things that bothers me about the SOFA however is the idea of giving Iraqi courts jurisdiction over US Soldiers. We didn’t trust German or Japanese courts with that sort of power for decades after WWII ended; why would we trust an Iraqi court system with no history of legitimacy? What happens when al-Maliki’s popularity tanks and he sees the need to indict a couple of Americans for killing Shiite militiamen allied with him (and Iran)? I think there’s a real danger there.

True. This has long been a sticky issue for any number of countries where we’ve had troops. It doesn’t help that we don’t even budge for some of the most heinous crimes, like the soldier who raped and murdered a little girl in Kosovo. I’m not familiar with the laws involved, but seems to me like we could have tried him and THEN turned him over to their authorities once we found him guilty. I could care less what happened to the bastard after that.